HIV positive naval officer’s journey towards ‘bigger cause’

This journey began 14 years ago when Deese, 32, enrolled at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. Raised in Florida, he is the son of Sue and Bobby Deese, a Buffalo native and Bills stalwart known for carrying the team’s flag to famous landmarks around the world.

Deese is the second of three children, his brother Adam Abitbol and his sister Kelsey. Adam, nine years older, attended the Naval Academy, became a Navy pilot, and is now commander of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a “hurricane hunter.”

His achievements helped inspire Deese, as a teenager, to think about “serving a cause that is bigger than himself.” He was also admitted to Annapolis with the intention of serving on Navy submarines.

In April 2014, on his mother’s birthday, Deese was having lunch with classmates when he was surprised to learn that the chief wanted to meet with him. The news was devastating: Routine blood tests showed he tested positive for HIV.

While Deese was to receive his diploma, there was a ban on appointing people with HIV as an officer. A month later, Deese remained seated at the graduation ceremony while his friends stood to accept their commissions.

“It was the darkest day of my life,” Deese said.

Ten years and a day later in Buffalo, during a joyous Naval Park ceremony last month on the USS Little Rock, Deese was formally commissioned as a Navy Reserve ensign, noting that the ship — built for World War II service — was commissioned a tad too late for the duty.

“I feel you, girl,” Deese said, to much laughter.

But the long struggle, he says now, has given it a broader meaning.

He was just 22 when he found out he was HIV-positive. He spent much of his youth denying a huge part of himself—that he was gay, that he was a member of the LGBTQ community—and if you can’t fully accept yourself, he asks, how can you be a true leader?

The next decade of education — from Annapolis to Charleston to Minneapolis and then to a community reception in Buffalo — only strengthened what U.S. Navy Reserve Lt. Kyle Coia, the commissioning master of ceremonies, described as Deese’s “authenticity and integrity.”

Bobby Deese, Kevin’s father, said the ordeal proved what every parent wants to see: “Phenomenal courage in the face of adversity.”

For a time, Deese worked as a shift manager at Amazon and then at a startup in Charleston, where many of his friends from Annapolis were stationed. But they were busy with their lives as officers while Deese – still hoping for a reversal – formally asked the Department of Defense to grant an exception that would allow him to be appointed.

He was again denied, for what seemed like the final time, admission to the University of Minnesota’s graduate program. He joined the Twin Cities Gay Men’s Chorus, and that support, he recalled in his commencement address, helped trigger an epiphany at a large AIDS Action Day gathering:

“People stood there with their chests full and said they were HIV-positive,” Deese said, “and that changed me.”

He realized that going public could help others who struggle with the same stigmas and misconceptions. Deese learned from Peter Perkowski, a Los Angeles attorney who grew up near Letchworth State Park, that a plaintiff named John Doe had gone to court to challenge the Defense Department’s HIV and officer exclusions.

Deese didn’t just ask to sign the contract. He said his name could be used publicly. By becoming “the face of this fight,” Perkowski said, “Kevin made things better for others in the future.”

Deese found it particularly telling to emphasize this point: While it is important to take practical precautions to avoid HIV, those diagnosed with the disease have served quietly and productively in the military for years. The ban applied only if a person tested positive for the disease before joining the military or receiving a commission.

In 2020, after earning a postgraduate degree in business and public policy, Deese wondered where to build his career. He kept thinking about childhood visits to his grandmother in Buffalo. His father passed down that fierce loyalty to the Bills to him, and Deese appreciated how the city seemed to inspire such passion in so many of its residents:

He realized that they accepted it as something bigger than themselves.

Deese was hired by M&T Bank. His choir director in the Twin Cities contacted Rob Strauss, artistic director of the Buffalo Gay Men’s Chorus, and suggested Deese as a talented potential member.

He was also welcomed at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Buffalo, where Deese became cantor in the choir. In 2022 – while he was settling into his new life and new relationship – a Virginia court ruled that the Army had made an unconstitutional decision to prevent an HIV-positive National Guard sergeant from earning his commission, according to Perkowski.

Based on that result, Perkowski said, the Department of Defense has ruled that cadets and cadets who learn they are HIV-positive at military academies can become officers — although HIV-positive people are still barred from enlisting for now.

In fact, Kevin Deese had the chance to symbolically stand alongside the rest of his class a decade later. After going through all the requirements a second time, he learned in early 2024:

The Navy was ready to give him a commission.

“I think a lot of people have been dealt a hand like his and given up,” said Dr. Seth Glassman, an assistant clinical professor at the University at Buffalo, who is managing Deese’s HIV care through Evergreen Health.

Glassman admires Deese for his courage and public statement of a simple truth: “In 2024, HIV drugs are so safe and effective that people can expect to live normal lives, and it is no longer rational or defensive to discriminate against or prevent people with HIV from serving in the military.”

May and June – which happens to be National Pride Month – brought Deese a series of monumental events. Holy Cross priest Fr. Vincent Adaikalasamy delivered the invocation and blessing at the dedication of a man whose “gratitude to all who have been a part of his life journey makes him unique and rare.”

The Buffalo Gay Men’s Choir sang the national anthem and a special performance of “Anchors Aweigh” by Strauss, who had waited a day to deliver some news to the members that he knew would upset them:

The Diocese of Buffalo canceled a June 9 choral concert at St. Joseph’s Cathedral that BGMC was scheduled to attend, saying the group’s appearance in the building would be “inconsistent with Catholic teaching.”

Strauss didn’t want disappointment to mar Deese’s celebration. “It was incredibly moving to be there,” he said.

Deese was also elected to the Erie County Democratic Committee a few days ago after what he called a “door-to-door grassroots campaign.” After years of watching everyday decisions being made “from the top down,” he said he’s ready to do his part to affect change on the ground.

All of this ties into what Deese will be reflecting on on the most significant Fourth of July of his life. Every day, he thinks about how many people who died in the early years of the AIDS epidemic were desperately trying to bring more attention to our shared humanity, and how the medical and cultural advances that protect it are built on their legacy and sacrifice.

If “service” means trying to uplift everything that matters in his life – his partner and his family, his city and his nation, his deep faith – then it all starts with one truth, which he fully arrived at in Buffalo:

“It’s me,” said Warrant Officer Kevin Deese.